


Foundation

by Isagel



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Dancing, Multi, Polyamory, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isagel/pseuds/Isagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hits him, then, for the first time, that she means this, that they both do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundation

There are lights hung everywhere, making the perfectly kept garden shimmer in the dark, glitter in the warm night air, alive with people, with music and laughter. Somebody’s birthday, extravagantly celebrated, enough guests that a few fake invitations was all it took to get inside, enough room to maneuver, between the brightly lit mansion and the almost park, that they can all avoid meeting the hosts and having their cover blown. Later, scaling the wall to the neighboring property and breaking into the card holder’s home will prove a challenge, regardless of how well they each perform their tasks, but there are still two hours and twenty-one minutes left until the glitch he’s spotted in the security arrangements, and for now there is just this party.

Standing with Sara at the refreshment table, sipping something non-alcoholic from long-stemmed glasses, breathing in the fragrance of the nearby rose bushes along with the faint citrus scent of her shampoo. Watching the breeze tug at a stray curl of her skilfully arranged hair.

He has a memory from last night of her curls falling disarranged - wild - over her pillow, her neck arching back for him to kiss, and the overlay of images, the contrast/compare of Sara like this, poised and elegant, and Sara like that makes heat shudder down the length of his spine. The simple fact that the comparison is his to make is a gift he has had no time yet to absorb.

There is conversation around them, in English and Spanish, blending naturally with the Latin music played by the live band on the other side of the terrace, a dance floor for the evening. Over by the hors d’oeuvres he can see Sucre, explaining to an old Hispanic lady how he’s someone’s husband’s second-cousin twice removed visiting from Tijuana, the level of fictional detail from what Michael can make out bewildering and endearing. The woman at least seems convinced, or charmed, anyway, by the warmth of Fernando’s smile. Sucre holds her plate while she adjusts her shoe, and looks like he’s enjoying his part.

The salsa beat of the music is penetrating, full of life, and he catches Sara swaying in time to it, her hips moving slightly from side to side, her fingers tapping the rhythm of the drums against the side of her glass. He sets his own drink down and reaches out to feel her, his hand coming to rest at the small of her back. She worries her lower lip with her teeth, holding back something that could be a grin. The roll of her hips is more pronounced beneath his palm, and her still too thin shoulders rise and fall with the motion.

It hits him sometimes with a stab of worry, like the paper-thin quality of Alex’s face, how fragile she looks, how nearly she’s been broken, how easily she could break. But there’s nothing fragile about her tonight - where he touches her, it’s as if he can feel the energy, the strength coiled just beneath her skin, ready for whatever this part of their mission is about to throw at them.

He strokes his thumb across the shallow dip of her spine, just above the cream-colored silk of her dress, and she leans back into the touch, closer to his side. Smiling, but she’s looking past him, tilting her head a fraction to indicate something behind him.

He turns to look, discreetly, and there is Alex, making his way towards them along the edge of the terrace. Their eyes meet, and Alex nods, a single crisp affirmative: the plan is a go. He and Linc have checked out the wall at the bottom of the garden and found it close enough in reality to the blueprints they’ve been working from that their strategy will be viable.

Michael nods back: they’re doing this.

He expects Alex to keep on walking past them, or perhaps sidle up to them under the pretense of getting a drink at the table if there’s something more he needs to tell them. But instead, he looks from Michael to Sara, his gaze lingering there, something like a smile quirking the thin line of his lips. Michael can see him considering, catches the almost imperceptible shift in his carriage when he makes up his mind. He doesn’t change his course or slow his steps.

He’s dressed in an expensive black suit, the cobalt shirt he’s wearing underneath casually open at the neck. It’s too dark now for it to show, but in the late afternoon sunlight at the warehouse the color brought the blue of his eyes out fluorescent, distracting from across the plans spread on the table. He looks sharp like this, sophisticated; the memories Michael could lay as contrast over that image are ones he’d rather leave to scatter with the ashes in the burnt-out ruins of Sona.

Straight up to where they’re standing, Alex comes, and his gaze travels over Michael, warm and piercing, but it’s Sara he turns to.

“Would you care to dance, Miss?” he asks, and it’s not what Michael expected at all.

Sara gives him a quick once over, as if he really is a stranger and she needs a moment to decide, but the smile is already on her lips. She puts her glass down on the table, reaches her hand out for Alex to take.

“I’d be delighted,” she says. “Honey, would you hold this for me?” she adds, her eyes sparkling and playful as she hands Michael her purse. He takes it, pure reflex, and then, before he can gather his wits enough to say anything, they’re gone into the whirl of people on the dance floor.

He doesn’t intend to watch, at first, thinking that it might be too conspicuous, but as soon as he turns away, he knows that’s not an option. He seeks them out again, through the crowd that half obscures them: the dark line of Alex’s shoulders, the bright flair of Sara’s skirt as she twirls. He lets himself look.

Sara seems to have some understanding of what the dance should be like, but no real knowledge of the steps. Her strategy is one part letting Alex lead, one part wild improvisation. It’s bold and graceful and ridiculous, and his chest aches with how much he loves her, how much he needs her beauty in his life.

Alex, though, Alex knows exactly what he’s doing. There is a precision to his steps, to his hands guiding Sara’s body, as effortless as the way he holds a gun, the way he brings a man down in a fight. The grace of practice, and Michael can imagine Pam, turning dark and vibrant in his arms, a far better dancer than Sara, dancing with passion and intent. There is a sting of jealousy within him at the thought, along with an overpowering sadness at the knowledge of all that Alex has had and lost.

But Alex isn’t dancing in the past. He’s here, holding Sara, moving with her, leaning in to speak into her ear beneath the beat of the music. She’s spun around again, so that her back is to his chest, his hands resting on her hips, the sheer silk of her dress catching on the wool of his pants as her body brushes his. Sensual, the way they move together, but easy, free of tension or direction, a simple sharing of energy and space. Sara lays her hands over Alex’s, small over large, and Michael has to close his eyes, just for a second, shivering with the double-exposed memory of how those hands feel on his body, his as well as hers.

When he opens them again, Sara has twisted her neck to look Alex in the eye, throwing some comment back at him, and she’s laughing, bright and effortless, Alex laughing with her, looking down into her face with tenderness. It hits him, then, for the first time, that she _means_ this, that they both do. It’s not for him, this thing they’ve offered, this agreement they’ve made between themselves, it’s not because they’re too kind or too afraid to make him choose. It’s because they want this, all of it, not just for his sake but for themselves and for each other, the third side of the triangle no less important than the other two. Perhaps, after all they’ve been through, all the ways in which life has chipped away and hollowed them out, one other person to lean on was never going to be enough support to build a future, for any of them. Maybe that’s what they’ve figured out, the two of them, while he’s been busy blaming himself for wanting to keep them both.

There is a crescendo in the music, the song coming to a close, and Sara spins outwards, the full length of both their outstretched arms, twirls back in again when Alex tugs on her hand. The execution is excellent, but the theatrics are just that little bit over the top, and when Alex catches her and dips her backwards towards the ground, her body a delicate arc in his arms, Michael finds himself laughing, as they are.

When they come back to him, stepping out of the moving crowd, the playfulness is still with them. Alex holds Sara’s hand up, an exaggerated gesture of old-fashioned gallantry, making a show of returning her to him.

“All yours,” he says, as Michael takes her hand from his and she twists, amused, to stand at his side, the thick curls of her hair slipped free of their pins to fall unchecked over her bare shoulders. The tone of Alex’s voice is ironic, filled with humor, but his eyes are steady, serious. Speaking of everything they’re both willing to give.

“I’m a lucky guy,” Michael says, matching the irony, laying it on a little thicker. But he squeezes Sara’s hand, tight, and holds on to Alex’s gaze.

Perhaps three is what it takes. Perhaps this is the foundation that will hold.

He knows it’s the one he wants to build on.


End file.
